GOOD NEWS! YOU'RE NEVER TOO OLD TO PLAY HIDE AND SEEK

A couple of nights ago I was sitting at my desk doing some writing for a client in Iraq. Though I probably looked quite serious, a smile played across my mental mood as I wrote. I am no longer in the military, but I am lucky enough to make a living as a creative freelance writer. I write for a lot of military or ex-military people, and I enjoy the interaction. It's very rewarding to help them out in my own way. After all, I don't regret my decision to end a promising military career, but I do miss certain aspects of the military, and my role as an Army Captain. My military memories are crisp and starched like one thousand soldiers standing at attention in a freshly mown field at a Division change of command ceremony in the morning, in April, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

I picked the kids up from daycare at 4pm, hung out with them for a while, made dinner at around 5:30, and then gravitated back to my computer. I had been writing for an hour straight, and I was on a roll, but I needed to get the kids ready for bed. I stood and walked down the hall and into the kitchen to grab some water. I passed my son's room. He was lying on hs back with one foot crossed over the other leg for a spot to balance his Gameboy, on which he was playing Galaga. Old School from back in my day when I was maybe twelve and playing Galaga because it was new and I was good at it, and hey, I was at Skate Country on a Friday night and there were lots of cute girls around and what else was I going to do?

"Hey Dad. What's up?" he said, without one single filament of worry or doubt or fear in his voice. He's a little zen master, and at that moment, with the light coming in through the plantation shutters in thick swatches, and his pet turtles floating in the bog of a habitat next to his bed, the world revolved around those little alien insects dropping bombs on his fighter ship. He's really good at Galaga, but not good enough to beat his dad. At least not yet.

"Nothing, buddy."

I then knocked on my nine year old daughter's door, because knocking is the new opening. She's serious about the knocking before entering, and I respect that. It's her brother that seems to forget. "Lee, if that's you then you can't come in," she said. I opened the door and mocked her brother's voice, "Why not, Chloe? I'm your brother..."

"Daaaaad," she said, blowing my cover before I even walk in.

"Hey. Bedtime is in one hour, little lady. Watcha doing?"

"Nothing."

"Are you having fun doing nothing?"

"Yes Daaaad."

"I think we're about all done with the TV for tonight." 

She smiled, because she already knew the answer to her next question. "Five more minutes?" 

"Okay." I started to walk out. "Hey Dad?" She wanted something.

"Yes?"

"Will you pay me five dollars to clean my room?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because cleaning your room is automatic. You only earn money when you do extra chores, not normal chores. You know that."

I walked out again, leaving her only half smiling. Lately she's been saying that she wants to start saving her money to buy an mp3 player.

As I exited her room, I noticed that the ambient light in the house is golden brown, the light of a rusty sun exhaling one last creosote sigh across the desert before making room for the energetic moon. I am 37, and some of my memories from childhood still seem so immediate. So fresh in my mind like a song I just heard. The light sends me back. Effortless.

When I was still a kid, (as opposed to just feeling like a kid, which I do almost every day lately), I was a gifted participant in every game of hide and seek I ever played. Don't ask me why. I just knew the places to hide. They called to me. The bushes. The curtains. The deep shadow behind a tree. I also had a keen ability to move silently between hiding places undetected. In my family, I have a bit of a reputation for sneaking up on people and startling them. Also known as scaring the shit out of them. 

I am still me. I walked across the room and squatted behind the recliner in such a way that I couldn't be seen. I called my son's name, cupping my hand to throw my voice, as if that realy works. I stayed there quietly, looking a the walls from an angle I'd never noticed before, and heard my son come out of his room. I heard him walk into my room, where he expected to find me working, writing, at the computer tapping my fingers to some low music, and leaning back and smiling as I always do when he enters the room ready to give him some direction like "I need you to get your pajamas on and brush your teeth, okay little man?"

I then heard him walk into the kitchen, not far from where I was hiding. He's sharp. His footsteps got faster. He ran and checked the garage and when he didn't find me there me immediately opened his sister's door without knocking. She, of course, said, "What are you doing? I told you to knock!"

"Chloe, I think Dad is hiding," he said.

Though she is nine, and growing up too fast, and even though she made me take down all of her princess posters about two years ago, she let out a joyful laugh and started whispering to her brother, but I can still hear her:

 "Okay, we have to split up. I'll go that way and you go that way."

"Where is he hiding?" my son asked. I think I heard him clapping his hands as he said it.

My left foot was going numb, but it was worth it. I had to maintain the integrity of the games of hide and seek I played when I was a kid. Up to twenty of us would gather in my front yard for a group briefing on the rules of the night. Hide and go seek in the dark. You can't leave this block. Only green cars are safe bases. If you get caught you have to help catch the others, until there is only the one.

On this night I didn't have my mojo about me. Outdoor hide and seek is so much more liberating. I was stuck inside my living room and they had split up and I could not move from that hiding spot to another without being seen. I stayed perfectly still, as he moved a little closer. Chloe was in the same room by then, but just standing there looking back down the hall, thinking of where I might be. Yes, it's true, they had the master cornered.

I cut my losses and jumped up, barking like Cujo. They both electrified in primal fear, eyes wide, hands in the air, leaping backwards while yelling "Aaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhhha ha hahahaha ha ha." Yelling quicky fell into laughter. "Do it again, Dad. Hide again," they said as soon as the initial scare wore off.

In the next round, my hiding place was so creative, so perfect that they never did find me. I have a dresser in a corner of my room and there is a small space behind it. If I crouch down, I fit in it perfectly. Not too comfortable, but it's worth it. The kids walked right past me. I eventually had to come out of my hiding place and sneak up on them like a ninja, putting an end the impromptu hide and seek so I could get them to bed and get back to my keyboard.

Life gets complicated, and like most I certainly have my own private sorrows and regrets. But I am grateful for so much, and just thankful to be here, at home, raising my children. All things considered, our little game marked the end of a very fine day.

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older." - Tom Stoppard

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